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THE FIVE BOOKS OF YOUTH 



THE FIVE 

BOOKS OF YOUTH 



BY 

ROBERT HILLYER 

AUTHOR OF "sonnets AND OTHER LYRICS' 




NEW YORK 
BRENTANO'S 

PUBLISHERS 



4>* 



COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
BRE NTANO' S 



All rights reserved 



THE-PLIMPTON'PBESS 
NOKWOOD-MASS'C-S-A 



MAY >3 1920 
©C(.A566808 



Oto •/. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Acknowledgments are due to the 
editors of The Nation^ The New Republic, 
The Dial, The Sonnet, The Lyric, Art and 
Life, and Contemporary Verse, for per- 
mission to reprint poems originally pub- 
lished by them. 



CONTENTS 
BOOK I 

A MISCELLANY 

PAGE 

I La Mare des Fees ^ i 

II Prothalamion ^3 

III Montmartre ^5 

IV A Letter. i7 

V Esther Dancing ^9 

VI Hunters 20 

VII A Wreck 22 

VIII Grave Stones in a Front Yard 23 

IX Vigil H 

X When the Door was Open 25 

XI The Maker Rests 28 

XII The Pilgrimage 3° 

XIII Epilogue 37 

XIV Thermopylae 39 

BOOK II 

DAYS AND SEASONS 

I Winds blowing over the white-capped bay 43 

II Like children on a sunny shore .... 45 

III Against my wall the summer weaves . . 46 



PAGE 

IV Into the trembling air 47 

V In gardens when the sun is set 48 

VI Now the white dove has found her mate 49 

VII When voices sink in twilight silences . . 50 

VIII When noon is blazing on the town ... 51 

IX The trees have never seemed so green . 53 
X The green canal is mottled with falling 

leaves 54 

XI They who have gone down the hill are far 

away 55 

XII Where two roads meet amid the wood . 56 

XIII The boy is late tonight binding his sheaves 57 

XIV O lovely shepherd Corydon, how far . . 59 
XV O little shepherd boy, what sobs are those 60 

XVI The dull-eyed girl in bronze implores 

Apollo 61 

XVII The winter night is hard as glass .... 63 

XVIII Chords, tremendous chords 64 

XIX I have known the lure of cities .... 65 

XX We wove a fillet for thy head 66 

BOOK III 

EROS 

I Now the sick earth revives, and in the sun 69 

II The heavy bee burdened the golden clover 72 

III Of days and nights under the living vine 74 
IV You seek to hurt me, foolish child, and 

why? 76 

V By these shall you remember 77 

1:6:1 



PAGE 

VI Two black deer uprise 78 

VII When in the ultimate embrace 79 

VIII Tonight it seems to be the same .... 80 

IX If you should come tonight 81 

X You are very far tonight 82 

XI O lonely star moving in still abodes . . 83 

XII A chalice singing deep with wine .... 84 

BOOK IV 

THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 

I As dreamers through their dreams surmise 87 

II The thinkers light their lamps in rows . . 89 

III I pass my days in ghostly presences . . 90 

IV Each mote that staggers down the sun . 91 

V He is a priest 92 

VI Through hissing snow, through rain, 

through many hundred Mays .... 94 

VII Gods dine on prayer and sacred song . . 95 

VIII A smile will turn away green eyes ... 96 
IX Two Kings there were, one Good, one 

Bad 97 

X I see that Hermes unawares 98 

XI Semiramis, the whore of Babylon ... 99 
XII Bring hemlock, black as Cretan cheese . 100 

XIII Walking through the town last night . . loi 
XIV The change of many tides has swung the 

flow 102 

XV Piero di Cosimo 103 

XVI I would know what cannot be known . . 104 

XVII The yellow bird is singing by the pond . 105 



BOOK V 
SONNETS 

PAGE 

I Love dwelled with me with music on her 

lips 109 

II Invoking not the worship of the crowd no 

III And yet think not that I desire to seal . in 

IV With the young god who out of death 

creates 112 

V O it was gay! the wilderness was floral . 113 

VI The snow is thawing on the hanging eaves 114 

VII So ends the day with beauty in the west 115 

VIII Across the evening calm I faintly hear . 116 

IX Calmer than mirrored waters after rain 117 

X I stood like some worn image carved of 

stone 118 

XI Through the deep night the leaves speak, 

tree to tree 119 

XII I walked the hollow pavements of the 

town 120 

XIII In tireless march I move from sphere to 

sphere 121 

XIV A while you shared my path and solitude 122 

XV There is a void that reason can not face 123 

XVI The mirrors of all ages are the eyes . . 1 24 

XVII We sat in silence till the twilight fell . . 125 

XVIII He clung to me, his young face dark with 

woe 126 



C83 



BOOK I 
A MISCELLANY 



I 

LA MARE DES FfiES 

X HE leaves rain down upon the forest pond, 
An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern; 
Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyond 
The autumn branches of the beeches burn 
With yellow flame and red amid the green. 
And patches of the darkening sky between. 

This is an ancient country; in this wood 
The Druids raised their sacrificial stones; 
Here the vast timeless silences still brood 
Though the cold wind's October monotones 
Fan the enchanted senses with the dread 
Of holiness long-past and beauty dead. 

How far beyond this glade the day-world turns 
Upon its pivot of reward and chance; 
Farther than the first star that palely burns 
Over the forest's meditative trance. 
First star of evening, last star of day, 
The one grows clear, the other dies away. 



Will they come back who once beneath these trees 
Invoked their long-forgotten gods with tears, 
Who heard the sob of the same twilight breeze 
Blow down the vistas of remembered years, 
Beside the tarn's black waters where they stood 
Close to their god, far from the multitude? 

I watch, but they are long ago departed, 
Far as the world of day, or as the star; 
The forest loved her priests, and tranquil-hearted 
They stole away in dim procession, far 
Down the unechoing aisles, beyond recalling; 
The moss grows on the stones, the leaves are 
falling. 

In vain I listen for their hissing speech. 
And seek white holy hands upon the air. 
They told their worship to the yew and beech. 
And left them with the secret, trembUng there, 
Nor shall they come at midnight nor at dawn; 
The gods are dead; the votaries are gone. 

A form floats toward me down the corridor 
Of mighty trees, half-visioned through the haze, 
And stands beside me on that empty shore; 
So rest we there, and wonderingly gaze. 
By the dead water, under the deep boughs, 
My Love and I renew our ancient vows. 

M oret-sur-Loing, igi8 

ni23 



II 

PROTHALAMION 



T, 



HE faded turquoise of the sky 
Darkens into ocean green 
Flecked palely where the stars will rise. 
A single bough between 

The spacious colour and your half-closed eyes 
Hangs out its hazy traceries. 
Still, like a drowsy god you lie, 
My fair unbidden guest. 

Your white hands crossed beneath your head, 
Your lips curved strangely mute with peace. 
Your hair moved lightly by the breeze. 
A glow is shed 

Warm on your face from the last rays that push 
From the dying sun into the green vault of the 

west. 

This is your bridal night; the golden bush 
Is heavy with the fruits that you will taste. 
Full ripened in desire. 
You who have hoarded youth, this is your hour 

of waste. 
Your hour of squandering and drunkenness. 
Of wine-dashed lips and generous caress. 
Of brows thorn-crowned and bodies crucified, — 
O bid me to the feast. 

ni33 



Tomorrow when the hills are washed with fire, 
Your door ajar against the flashing East, — 
O fling it wide. 

Paris, IQIQ 



iHl 



Ill 

MONTMARTRE 

A ROCKY hill above the town, 

Grey as the soul of silence, 

Except where two white strutting domes 

Stand aloof and frown 

On the huddled homes 

Of world-wept love and pain, — 

They do not heed that tall disdain, 

But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain. 

A woman, young, but old in love. 
Carried her child across the square; 
Her face was a dim drifting flame 
To which her pyre of hair 
Was a column of golden smoke. 

Her eyes half told the secrets of 

Gay sins that no regret defiled; 

There her heart broke 

In the little question between her eyes. 

Hearing the trees in the square she smiled, 

And sang to the child. 

So passed by in the narrow street 

That climbs the steep rock over the town. 

Love and the west wind in the stars; 

The wind and the sound of those lagging feet 



Died like forgotten tears. 

I waited till the stars went down, 

And I wrote these lines on a cloud to greet 

The dawn on the crystal stairs. 

Paris, igiQ 



Ci6] 



IV 
A LETTER 



D 



EAR boy, what can this stranger mean to 
you, 
Blown to your country by unbridled chance? 
That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew 
Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave 
glance 
Wherein as rising tides on hazy shores 

Rise the new flames and colours of romance? 

Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your 
youth 
And fling you shorn of beauty to despair, 
The sum of all that fascinating truth 

That you have gleaned, hands tangled in brown 
hair. 
Eyes straining into contemplative fires, — 

This truth shall not seem truth when trees are 
bare. 

The hunger of the soul, the watcher left 
To brood the nearness of his own decay. 

Dully remarking the slow shameless theft 
Of the old holiness from day to day, 

How youth grows tarnished, wisdom changes 
false, — 
Till one bends near to steal your life away. 

Ii72 



Yet who am I to turn aside the hand 
Outstretched so friendly and so humbly proud, 

Heaped up with beauty from the sunrise land 
Of hearts adventurous and heads unbowed? 
Only, look not at me with changing eyes 
When we must separate amid the crowd. 

Touts, igi8 



CiS] 



ESTHER DANCING 

i^PEAK not nor stir. Here music is alive, 
Woven from those swift fingers, strong and light, 
Marching across those singing hands, or shed 
Slowly, like echoes down the muffled night. 
Or beautifully translated, note by note, 
Some fainter voice, rhapsodic and remote. 
Or shaken out in melodies that dive 
Clear into fathoms of profounder things, 
Then suddenly again on rising wings. 
Burst into sun and hover overhead. 

Incarnate music flashing into form 

Fled from the vineyards of melodious Greece, 

Feet that have flown before the gathering storm 

Or glanced in gardens of the Golden Fleece, 

Face atune to all the songs that mass 

Their gusts of passion on the sunlit grass. 

Image of lyric hope and veiled despair. 

Like them, thou shalt unutterably pass 

Into the silence and the shadowed air. 

Pomfret, IQIQ 



ni93 



VI 

HUNTERS 



A 



VASE red-wrought in Athens long ago. . . . 
The hunter and his gay companion ride 
Through the young fields of Hfe; on every side 
Frail and fantastic the tall lilies grow. 
Her head thrown back, her eyes afraid and wide, 
Flies like a phantom the grey spectral doe, 
Her light feet scarcely bend the grass below. 
Gloriously flying into eventide. 

Ahead there lies the shadow, then the dark, 

And safety in the thick forestial night. 

But nearer still she hears the bloodhounds bark, 

And horses panting in impetuous flight, 

And hunters without pity for the slain, 

Halloing shrilly over the windy plain. 

Sombre become the skies, the winds of fall 
Sing dangerously through the hissing grass; 
Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pass 
Over the tress, then comes an interval 
Of utter calm, the air is a morass 
Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call 
Rings suddenly from the onrushing squall. 
And the storm closes in a whirling mass. 

1:20] 



And still the doe eludes the raging hounds, 
And still the youths press onward toward the 

woods, 
Though the world shudders with diluvian sounds 
And the rain streams in undulating floods. 
Sharp lightning splits the sky; the doe is gone. 
O follow! follow! if it be till dawn. 

The hunted flees, the boyish hunters follow 

Into the forest's dripping everglades. 

The wind goes wailing through the swaying 

shades, 
And violent rain gushes in every hollow. 
The doe runs free, triumphantly evades 
Those straining eyes; the ghastly shadows swal- 
low 
Her flying form; the frightened horses wallow 
Deep in the mire. Then the last daylight fades. 

O Youths, turn back! the year is getting late. 
And autumn has no pity for the slain. 
Twining like serpents, the lean arms of fate 
Grope toward you through the blackness and the 

rain. 
Then Death, and the obliterating snow. . . . 
A vase, red-wrought in Athens long ago. 

Tours, 1918 



t^ll 



VII 

A WRECK 

k^URVIVOR of an unknown past, 
On this wild shore cast 
By the sad desolate tides; 
In a warm harbour long ago 
They waited you, and waited long. 
And guessed and feared at last, 
But could not know. 

Now in a language strange the waves make 
song. 
And the flood surges round your broken sides, 
And the ebb leaves you to the burning sun. 

But when the voyage of my life is done, 
And my soul puts forth no more. 
Then may I sleep 

Beneath the fathoms of the tideless deep. 
And not be cast deserted on some dark alien 
shore. 

Cape Cod, igi6 



1:223 



VIII 

GRAVE STONES IN A FRONT YARD 

JL/EST the swift world forget their names and 

pass 
Unthinking, they have set this cold dead slate 
Above their slumbers in the living grass 
To warn all comers of impending fate; 

Where friends made merry once at their behest, 
Where young feet strolled about the shady lawn, 
They welcome none but one unfailing guest. 
And all the revellers but Death are gone. 

Edgartown, igi6 



C233 



IX 

VIGIL 

A HIS is the hour when all substantial foes 
Are exorcised and taunt the soul no more; 
Now thinner grows the veil between the shore 
Of vaster worlds and our calm garden close. 
Through the small exit of the open door 
We pass, and seem to feel the eyes of those 
We knew upon us; almost we suppose 
The advent of the face we tremble for. 

O that through this profound serenity 

Might sound the answer to the heart's deep cry; 

If all those gracious presences might see 

That, though we hurt them once, they shall not 

die 
Until we also wither, we who keep 
Vigil on these sweet meadows where they sleep. 

Pomfret, 191Q 



1:243 



X 

WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPEN 



Loi 



>NELY as music from afar, 
Hung the new moon and one white star, 
Above the poplars black and tall 
That sentineled the garden wall; 
Four black poplars beyond the wall, 
Two on each side of the garden gate, 
In silhouette against the wide 
Pale sky of the late eventide. 
Close was the garden and serene. 
The leaning reeds in quiet state 
About the pool, merged in the green 
Of misty leaves and hanging vines. 
The fireflies spun their silver lines 
Across the deeper atmosphere. 
And through the silence came the clear 
Persistent tuning of the frogs 
From dank recesses of the bogs. 

Beyond the garden I could see 

The glimmer of uncertain meadows. 

Framed by the open doorway, wreathing 

Sarabands of ghostly shadows. 

Slowly turning, slowly breathing. 

Largely and unhastily, — 

But the garden held its breath. 

1:25 a 



Peace as profound as death, if death 

Be visited by stealthy dreams; 

A vagrant note from soundless themes 

That ring the comet-paths of space, 

Seemed vibrant in the windless air 

That trembled with its presence there. 

Out beyond the nameless place 

Where neither fields nor clouds exist. 

Grey from the background of the mist, 

I saw three vague forms drawing near. 

My sense recoiled acute with fear; 

I could not stir. As from a cage 

I watched that spectral dim cortege 

Moving inexorable and slow 

Against the ashen afterglow. 

Now caught the moon their robes in white. 

Now strode they sable through the night. 

Across the grass they came and grew 

Whiter, statelier, as they drew 

Beneath the shadow of the wall; 

Then one by one the three stepped through 

The garden door, and stood a while 

Beside the pool, their image spread 

Sombre, and menacing, and tall. 

Sombre as Priam's dreadful daughter, 

Menacing as a murderer's smile, 

Tall as the fingers of the dead. 

Stood they beside the quiet water. 

C26] 



The moon went out in a golden blur, 
And the small stars followed after her, 
But when the fireflies cleft the air 
I saw those three forms standing there, 
Until the night cooled, and the trees 
Shook in the strong hands of the breeze. 
And then I heard their footsteps press 
The muiBed grass beyond the door. 
And so went forth for ever more, 
My three Fates to the wilderness. 

Pomfrety igig 



c^rn 



XI 

THE MAKER RESTS 



I 



HAVE worked too long and my hands are tired, 
Said the maker; 

From the earliest dawn unto deepest nightfall 
Have I laboured. 

From the earliest dawn before any spirit 
Stirred from sleeping, 
When no single note from the frozen forest 
Wakened music. 

Unto nightfall and the new moon rising 
When the silence 

From the valleys rose in a faint blue spiral, 
Have I laboured. 

I created dawn and the new moon rising 
Out of silence; 

I have worked too long and my hands are tired. 
Said the maker. 

I shall fold my hands; I shall rest till sunrise. 
Said the maker; 

In the shade of hills and the calm of starlight 
Shall I slumber. 

1:28] 



my night is sweet with a distant music! 

1 shall hear 

The responding waves and the wind's slight mur- 
mur 
While I slumber. 

my night is fair with amazing colour! 

1 shall dream 

Of the blue-white stars and the glimmering forest 
While I slumber. 

my night is rich with unfolding flowers! 

1 shall breathe 

All the scattered smells of the field and garden 
While I slumber . . . 

I will rise, O Night, I will make new beauty. 
Said the maker, 

I will make more songs, more stars, more flowers, 
Said the Lord. 
Cambridge, ig20 



C293 



XII 
THE PILGRIMAGE 



Bi 



>ESIDE a deep and mossy well 
In the dark starless night I lay; 
And dropping water hke a bell, 
Like a bell ringing far away, 
Struck liquid notes in monotone, — 
An echo of a distant bell 
Tolling the knell of yesterday. 
Deep down beneath the mossy ground 
The liquid notes in monotone 
Kept dropping, dropping endlessly, 
And as I listened, over me 
Crept Hke a mist a filmy spell; 
My spirit's waving wings were bound. 
And dreams came that were not my own. 
Half-sleeping, half-awake, I heard 
The drowsy chirp of a forest bird. 
And the wind came up and the grasses stirred 
And the curtaining woods that cluster round 
That resonantly-echoing well 
Shook all their leaves with silver sound 
Like voices murmuring in a shell. 
Was it the past that lived again 
In that nocturnal murmuring. 
Waking a hidden voice to sing 
Deep in my heart of other times 



Whose memory long entombed had lain 

Covered with all the dust of the years? . . . 

Falling in splashing tears 

The wet notes drop in liquid chimes, 

And the white fingers of the breeze 

Gather a song from the melodious trees. . . . 

There is a hand whiter than pearl 
That plucks a lute's monotonous strings; 

starlight phantom of a girl 
What lyric soul around thee sings, 
And what divine companionship 

Taught that entwining music to thy fingers, 
And that unearthly music to thy lips? 
She pauses, and the echo lingers 
Hovering like wings upon the air. 

1 see more clearly now, her hair 
Ripples like a black water-fall 
About the pallor of her face. 
She sits beside a mossy well 
Amid some dim marmoreal place, 
Some fragrant Moorish hall 

Set all about with arabesques of stone 
And intricate mosaics of gem and shell. 
She sings again, she plays a monotone. 
Perpetual rhythm like a far-ofF bell. 
And someone dances, in a dancing river 
The white ecstatic limbs flutter and quiver 
Against the shadow. In the odorous flowers 



That grow about the well, still forms are lying, 

A group of statues, an eternal throng, 

Watching the dance and listening to the song; 

So shall they He, innumerable hours, 

Silent and motionless for ever. 

The wind comes up, the flowers shiver, 

The dancer vanishes, the songs are dying; 

Night sickens into day. 

The wind comes up and blows the dust away. . . , 

Between two clouds a sullen flame 
Expands, and lo, the crescent moon 
Rides like a warrior through the sky. 
Thus long ago the warning came 
When midnight towns lay all in swoon. 
That the great gods were coming nigh 
To crush the rebellious earth. 
Now beneath the crescent moon 
No spirits stir, no wind makes mirth, 
Only a rhythmic monotone 
Of waters dropping in a well. . . . 

But who is this so broken with distress 
That steals like mist into my loneliness? 
Why art thou weeping there, disconsolate child? 
Thy tears fall like the waters of a well, 
And drip in silver notes upon the sands. 
What is thy sorrow? Ah, what man can tell 
The shapeless fancies that unwelcome dwell 



Within thy brain, the spectres, dark and wild 

That haunt the spirit of a child? 

Mayhap thou weepest for the embattled lands, 

The bloody ruin of decaying realms 

That a war overwhelms 

And buries deep in the dust of history? 

He raises his wet eyes and looks at me, 

His boyish face full of a yearning. 

An ancient pain, 

As of a ghost long dead who yearns to live again. 

And answers, "In myself, thy thoughts returning 

To other times shall slumber in the past. 

And be a child again, and die at last 

In the protecting arms of our great Mother 

Who bore us both, O well-beloved brother. 

Thou in thy sorry dreams, I in my childish grief. 

Thy heart in tears, mine eyes amazed with tears. 

Thy sorrow rich with the repining years, 

My sorrow frail as childhood, and as brief/* 

Who art thou, haunting boy, nocturnal elf? 

"I am the Dead; the Dead that was thyself." 

Then falls a darkness on that starless shore. 

Afar I hear the closing of a door. ... 

I see on a sharp hill above the Styx, 
The bruised Christ upon his crucifix. 
And racked in anguish on his either side 
Hang Buddha and Mohammed crucified. 
Their heavy blood falls in a monotone 

[33 3 



Like deep well-water dropping on a stone. 
None moves, none breaks the silence; on those 

roods 
Eternal suffering triumphant broods. 
Prometheus from his cliff of wild unrest 
Mocks them and draws the vulture to his breast. 
Each year upon a darker Calvar\' 
Are hung the pallid \'ictims of the tree. 
And none will watch with them, for none can see 
.\s I once saw, unending agony. 
Save where Prometheus from his dizzy place 
Regards those sufferers with scornful face. 
And his loud laughter rings through empty 

Space. . . . 

I can see nothing now, and only hear 

Through the thick atmosphere 

A deep perpetual well, that sad and slow, 

Intones the knell of ages long ago, 

.\nd ages that no man can tell or know, 

\Miose shadows roll before them on the sky, 

Black with forebodings of futurity. 

Sweet sounds through midnight, liquid interlude. 

Voice of the lonely souls that yearn and brood, 
Voice of the unseen Life, the unsubdued, 
WTiat wonder that He draweth nigh to taste 
Of your cool waters. Hail thou nameless One, 
Fair stranger from a realm beyond the Sun, 

1:343 



Knowing that thou art God I do not fear, — 
Speak to me, raise me from my Hfe's long dream. 

"The whole night through thou liest here 
Beside the well that waters Lethe's stream, 
And still thou dost not drink; O Man make 

haste; 
Ere long the dawn will pour adown the waste, 
And show thee, reft from the embrace of night. 
The barren world, barren of revelry. 
Happy art thou, O Man, happily free. 
Who wilt never see 

A thousand ages shed their life and light 
As petals fall at eventide. 
Thou shalt not see the radiant stars subside 
Into the frozen ocean of the Vast, 
Nor see thy world absorbed at last 
Into a nothingness, an airless void. 
Nor see the thoughts that Man has glorified 
Swept from the world, and with the world de- 
stroyed. 
This have I seen a thousand times repeated, 
Unhappy as I am, unhappy God! 
As many times as thou hast greeted 
The rising sun against the broad 
And tranquil clouds, so many times have I 
Greeted the dawn of a new Universe, 
And seen the molten stars rehearse 
The lives and passions of the stars gone by. 
When worlds are growing old, and there draw nigh 



The shadows that shall cover them for ever, 
(Shadows like these which doom your ancient 

sky) 
Then to the well that feeds the sacred river 
I come, and as the liquid music drips 
Far in the ground, I plunge my lips 
Deep in forgetfulness, and wash away 
All the stains of the old griefs and joys. 
That with His Hps as smihng as a boy's, 
God may rejoice in His created day." 

He stoops and drinks; a moment the cool bell 
Pauses its ringing in the well: 
A mist flies up against the dawn; the young winds 

weep; 
Is it too late? I too would drink, drink deep, 
But weariness is on me and I sleep. 

Cambridge^ IQIS 



1:363 



XIII 
EPILOGUE 



D 



'AWN has come. 
Faint hazes quiver with the faltering Hght; 
Some airy skein draws in the shadows from 
The broken forest where the war has passed, 
The Forest Terrible, the grey despair. 
The forest broken in the withering blight 
Of the lean years, — the blight, the years, have 

passed. 
Leaving a solitary watcher there. 
Silence at last. 

She watches by the dead. 

Her deep white shadow overspreads their faces. 

Here in the outland places. 

She watches by the dead. 

How many dawns have driven her afar 

With the loosed thunder of tempestuous wrong! 

Today she will remain. 

Silence familiar to the morning star, 
Standing, her finger to her Hps, 
Hushing the battle-cry, the victor's song, 
Standing inviolate above the slain. 

1:37: 



1 he fugitive sunlight sHps 
Over the fragment of a cloud, 
And the sky opens wide, 
Behold the dawn! 

Where is the nightmare now? the angry-browed? 
The lowering imminence — the bloody eyed ? 
Fled, as the threat of midnight, fled away. 
Gone, after four dark timeless ages, gone. 
Hail the day! 

Silence, robed in the morning's golden fleece. 
Folding the world's torn wings to stillness, giving 
Peace to the dead, and to the living, 
Peace. 

TouTSt 1918 



l^^l 



XIV 
THERMOPYLAE 



Ml 



EN lied to them and so they went to die. 
Some fell, unknowing that they were deceived, 
And some escaped, and bitterly bereaved. 
Beheld the truth they loved shrink to a lie. 
And those there were that never had believed. 
But from afar had read the gathering sky. 
And darkly wrapt in that dread prophecy, 
Died trusting that their truth might be retrieved, 

It matters not. For life deals thus with Man; 

To die alone deceived or with the mass, 

Or disillusioned to complete his span. 

Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one. 

The young dead legions in the narrow pass; 

The stark black cross against the setting sun. 

Pomfuty iQig 



1:393 



BOOK II 
DJrS AND SEASONS 



I 



w> 



INDS blowing over the white-capped bay, 
Winds wet with the eager breath of spray, 
Warm and sweet from the oceans we have 
dreamed of; 

From gardens of Cathay. 

The empty factory windows, row on row, 
Warm sullenly beneath the afterglow, 
Burn topaz out of dust and dim the flare 
Of the street-lamps below. 

In the smoky park the dingy plane-trees stir, 
Green branches in the twilight fade and blur; 
A lonely girl walks slowly through the square 
And the wind speaks to her. 

Speaks of the sunset scattered on the sea. 
And the spring blowing northward radiantly; 
Flaming in lightning from cyclonic dark. 
Dreams of delights to be. 

Tomorrow there will be orchards filled with fruit, 
And song of meadow lark and song of flute; 
Far from the city there are lover's fields, 
Lips eloquent and mute. 

1:431 



Warm are the winds out of the ebbing day, 
Blowing the ships and the spring into the bay, 
I smell the cherry blossoms falling gaily 
In gardens of Cathay. 

Paris, igiQ 



tul 



II 



A^IKE children on a sunny shore 
The rhododendrons thrive 

Which never any spring before 
Have been so much ahve. 

Each metal bough benignly lit 
With yellow candle flames; 

The tree is holy, hallow it 
With sacramental names. 

Paris^ IQIQ 



liSl 



Ill 



A, 



.GAINST my wall the summer weaves 
Profundities of dusky leaves, 
And many-petaled stars full-blown 
In constellated whiteness sown; 
I contemplate with lazy eyes 
My small estate in Paradise, 
And very comforting to me 
Is this familiarity. 

Paris, IQIQ 



[1463 



IV 



I 



NTO the trembling air, 
Calm on the sunset mist, 
Sweetness of gardens where 
The yellow slave boy kissed 
The Sultan's daughter. . . . 

Shadow of tumbled hair 
Shadow of hanging vine 
Fountains of gold that twine 
In singing water. 

A secret I have heard 

From the scarlet beak of the bird 

That sings at the close of day, 

Fills me with cold unrest 

Under the open doors of the fiery west. 

"O heart of clay, 
O lips of dust, 

O blue-shadowed wisteria vine; 
Youth falls away 
As petals must 

Beneath the drooping leaves in the day's de- 
cline." 

Paris, iQig 



1:473 

r 



I 



N gardens when the sun is set, 
The air is heavy with the wet 
Faint smell of leaves, and dark incense 
Of peach-blossom and violet. 

There is no lurking foe to fear. 
Only the friendly ghosts are here 
Of lazy youth and dozing age. 
Who sat and mellowed year by year. 

Until they merged with all the rest 
Beneath the overhanging west. 
And took their sleep with tranquil hearts 
Safe in our Mother's mighty breast. 

If there be any sound, 'tis sweet. 
The hidden rush of eager feet 
Where robins flutter in the dust, 
Or perch upon the garden-seat, 

And little voices that are known 
To those who contemplate alone 
The busy universe that moves 
In gardens rank and overgrown. 

Here in the garden we are one, 
The golden dust, the setting sun. 
The languid leaves, the birds and I, — 
Small bubbles on oblivion. 

TourSf IQ18 

1:48] 



VI 



N< 



OW the white dove has found her mate, 
And the rainbow breaks into stars; 
And the cattle lunge through the mossy gate 
As the old man lowers the bars. 

Westerly wind with a rainy smell, 

Eaves that drip in the mud; 
And the pain of the tender miracle 

Stabbing the languid blood. 

Over the long, wet meadow-land, 

Beyond the deep sunset. 
There is a hand that pressed your hand, 

And eyes that shall not forget. 

Now the West is the door of wrath. 

Now 'tis a burnt-out coal; 
Petals fall on the orchard path; 

Darkness falls on the soul. 

Washington y 1918 



n49: 



VII 



w, 



HEN voices sink in twilight silences, 
Like swimmers in a sea of quietude, 
And faint farewells re-echo from the hill; 
When the last thrush his sleepy vesper says, 
And the lost threnody of the whip-poor-will 
Gropes through the gathering shadows in the 
wood; 

Then in the paths where dusk fades into grey, 

And sighing shapes stir that I never see, 

I follow still a quest of old despair 

To find at last, — ah, but I cannot say, 

Except that I have known a face somewhere, 

And loved in times beyond all memory. 

O soulless face! white flash in soliitude, 
Forgotten phantom of a moonless night. 
Shall I kiss thy sad mouth once again, or wait 
Drowned beneath fathoms of a tideless mood 
Until the stars flee through the western gate 
Driven in shivering fear before the light? 

Cambridget igi6 



Cso] 



VIII 



Wi 



HEN noon is blazing on the town, 
The fields are loud with droning flies, 
The people pull their curtains down, 
And all the houses shut their eyes. 

The palm leaf drops from your mother's hand 
And she dozes there in a darkened room. 
Outside there is silence on the land. 
And only poppies dare to bloom. 

Open the door and steal away 
Through grain and briar shoulder high, 
There are secrets hid in the heart of day, 
In the hush and slumber of July. 

Your face will burn a fiery red, 
Your feet will drag through dusty flame. 
Your brain turn molten in your head. 
And you will wish you never came. 

O never mind, go on, go on, — 
There is a brook where willows lean; 
To weave deep caverns from the sun. 
And there the grass grows cool and green. 

And there is one as cool as grass. 
Lying beneath the willow tree. 
Counting the dragon flies that pass. 
And talking to the humble bee. 



She has not stirred since morning came, 
She does not know how in the town 
The earth shakes dizzily with flame, 
And all the curtains are drawn down. 

Sit down beside her; she can tell 

The strangest secrets you would hear. 

And cool as water in a well, 

Her words flow down upon your ear. . . . 

She speaks no more, but in your hair 
Her fingers soft as lullabies 
Fold up your senses unaware, 
Into a poppy paradise. 

And when you wake, the evening mist 
Is rising up to float the hill, 
And you will say, "The mouth I kissed. 
The voice I heard ... a dream . . . but stil 

"The grass is matted where she lay, 

I feel her fingers in my hair" ... 

But your lamp is bright across the way. 

And your mother knits in the rocking chair. 

Paris, igiQ 



11523 



IX 



HE trees have never seemed so green 
Since I remember, 

As in these groves and gardens of September, 
And yet already comes the chill 
That bodes the world's last garden ill, 
And in the shadow I have seen 
A spectre, — even thine, 
O Vandal, O November. 

The wind leaps up with sudden screams 

In gusts of chafF. 

Two boys with blowing hair listen and laugh. 

We hear the same wind, they and I, 

Under the dark autumnal sky; 

It blows strange music through their dreams. 

Keenly it blows through mine, 

Singing their epitaph. 

Toursy igi8 



tSil 



X 



HE green canal is mottled with falling leaves, 
Yellow leaves, fluttering silently; 
A whirling gust ripples the woods, and heaves 
The stricken branches with a sigh, 
Then all is still again. 
Unmoving, the green waterway receives 
Ghosts of the dying forest to its breast; 
Loneliness . . . quiet . . . not a wing has stirred 
In the cold glades; no fish has leaped away 
From the heavy waters; not a drop of rain 
Distils from the pervading mist. 
Sluggishly out of the west 
A grey canal-boat glides, half-seen, unheard; 
The sweating horses on the towpath sway 
Backward and forward in a rhythmic strain; 
It passes by, a dream within a dream, 
Down the dark corridor of leaning boughs, 
Down the long waterways of endless fall. 
A shiver stirs the woods; a fitful gleam 
Of sun gilds the sky's overhanging brows; 
Then shadowy silence, and the yellow stream 
Of dead leaves dropping to the green canal. 

Moret-sur-Loingy jgi8 



n54a 



XI 



T, 



HEY who have gone down the hill are far 

away; 
From the still valleys I can hear them call; 
Their distant laughter faintly floats 
Through the unmoving air and back to me. 
I am alone with the declining day 
And the declining forest where the notes 
Of all the happy minstrelsy, 
Birds and leaf-music and the rest, 
Sink separately in the hush of fall. 
The sun and clouds conflicting in the west 
Swirl into smoky light together and fade 
Under the unbroken shadow; 
Under the shadowed peace that is the night; 
Under the night's great quietude of shade. 
The sheep below me in the meadow 
Seem drifting on the haze, serene and white, 
Pale pastured dreams, unearthly herds that roam 
Where the dead reign and phantoms make their 

home. 
They also pass, even as the clear ring 
Of the sad Angelus through the vales echoing. 

Montigny, 1918 



n55 3 



XII 



W] 



HERE two roads meet amid the wood. 
There stands a white sepulchral rood, 
Beneath whose shadow, wayfarers 
Would pause to offer up their prayers. 
There is no house for miles around. 
No sound of beast, no human sound. 
Only the trees Hke sombre dreams 
From whose bare boughs the water drips; 
And the pale memory of death. 
The haze hangs heavy without breath, 
It hangs so heavy that it seems 
To hold a silent finger to its lips. 

In after years the spectral cross 

Will be quite overgrown with moss. 

And wayfarers will go their way 

Nor stop to meditate and pray. 

The spring will nest in all the trees 

Unblighted by the memories 

Of autumn and the god of pain. 

The leaves will whisper in the sun. 

Life will crown death with snowy flowers. 

Long hence . . . but now the autumn lowers. 

The sky breaks into gusts of rain, 

Turn thee to sleep, the day is nearly done. 

Forest of Fontatnebleau, iqi8 

C563 



XIII 



T, 



HE boy is late tonight binding his sheaves, 
The twihght of these autumn eves 
Falls early now and chill. 
The murky sun has set 
An hour ago behind the overhanging hill. 
Great piles of fallen leaves 
Smoulder in every street 

And through the columned smoke a scarlet jet 
Of flame darts out and disappears. 



The boy leans motionless upon his staff, 

With all the sorrows of his fifteen years 

Gazing out of his eyes into the fall, 

A memory ineffable and sweet 

Half tinged with voiceless passion, half 

Plaintive with sad imaginings that drift 

Like echoes of far-off autumnal bells. 

He starts up with a laugh, 

Binds up the last gaunt sheaf and turns away; 

Out of the dusk an inarticulate call 

Rings keen across the solemn Berkshire woods, 

And then the answer. Impotent farewells 

That eager voices lift 

Into the hush of the receding day; 

Full soon the silence surges in again. 

Peaceful, inevitable, deep as death. 



The boy has Hngered late in the grey fields, 
Knowing the first strange happiness of pain, 
And the low voices of October moods. 
Now comes the night, the meadow yields 
Unto the sky a damp and pungent breath; 
The quiet air of the New England town 
Seems confident that everyone is home 
Safe by his fire. 
The frosty stars look down 
Near, near above the kind familiar trees 
In whose dry branches roam 
The gentle spirits of the darkling breeze. 
Deep in its caverned heart the forest sings 
Of mysteries unknown and vanished lore; 
Old wisdom; dead desire; 

Dreams of the past, of immemorial springs. . . . 
The wind is rising cold from the river: close the 
door. 

Tours, 1918 



Css] 



XIV 



o 



LOVELY shepherd Corydon, how far 
Thou wanderest from thine Ionian hills; 
Now the first star 

Rains pallid tears where the lost lands are, 
And the red sunset fills 
The cleft horizon with a flaming wine. 

The grave significance of falling leaves 

Soon shall make desolate thy singing heart, 

When the cold wind grieves, 

And the cold dews rot the standing sheaves, — 

Return, O Thou that art 

The hope of spring in these lost lands of mine. 

Chdlons-sufMarnet igiy 



CsgD 



XV 



o 



LITTLE shepherd boy, what sobs are those 
That shake your slender shoulders, what despair 
Has run her fingers through your rumpled hair, 
And laid you prone beneath a weight of woes? 
The trees upon the hill will soon be bare, 
A yellow blight is on the garden close. 
But you, you need not mourn the vanished rose, 
For many springs will find you just as fair. 

Weep not for summer, she is past all weeping, 
Fear not the winter, she in turn will pass. 
And with the spring love waits for you, per- 
chance. 
When, with the morn, faint wings stir from their 

sleeping. 
And the first petals scatter on the grass, 
Under the orchards and the vines of France. 

Recicourt, 1917 



C6o2 



XVI 

A HE dull-eyed girl in bronze implores Apollo 

To warm these dying satyrs and to raise 
Their withered wreaths that rot in every hollow 

Or smoulder redly in the pungent haze. 
The shining reapers, gone these many days, 

Have left their fields disconsolate and sear. 
Like bony sand uncovered to the gaze. 

In this, the ebb-tide of the year. 

My wisest comrade turns into a swallow 
And flashes southward as the thickets blaze 
In awful splendour; I, who cannot follow, 

Confront the skies' unmitigated greys. 
The cynic faun whom I have known betrays 

A dangerous mood at night, and seems austere 
Beneath the autumn noon's distempered rays. 

In this, the ebb-tide of the year. 

Ice quenches all reflection in the shallow 

Lagoon whose trampled margin still displays 
Upheaval where the centaurs used to wallow; 

And where my favourite unicorns would graze, 
A few wild ducks scream lamentable lays 

Of shrill derision desperate with fear. 
Bleak note on note, phrase on discordant phrase. 

In this, the ebb-tide of the year. 

i:6i3 



Poor girl, how soon our garden world decays, 
Our metals tarnish, our loves disappear; 

Dull-eyed we haunt these unfrequented ways, 
In this, the ebb-tide of the year. 



Cambridge^ 1920 



n623 



XVII 



T, 



HE winter night is hard as glass; 
The frozen stars hang stilly down; 
I sit inside while people pass 
From the dead-hearted town. 



The tavern hearth is deep and wide, 
The flames caress my glowing skin; 
The icicles hang cold outside, 
But I sit warm within. 

The faces pass in blurring white 
Outside the frosted window, lifting 
Eyes against my cheerful night, 
From their night of dreadful drifting. 

Sharp breaths blow fast in a smoky gale, 
Rags wander through the dull lamp light; 

my veins run gold with Christmas ale, 
And the tavern fire is bright. 

The midnight sky is clear as glass. 
The stars hang frozen on the town, 

1 watch the dying people pass. 
And I wrap me warm in my gown. 

Brussels^ 1919 

1:633 



XVIII 

V^HORDS, tremendous chords, 

Over the stricken plain, 
The night is caUing her ancient lords 

Back to their own again. 

Vast, unhappy song, 

From incalculable space, 
Calling the heavy-browed, the strong, 

Out of their resting-place. 

Far from the lighted town, 

Over the snow and ice, 
Their dreadful feet go up and down 

Seeking a sacrifice. 

And can you find a way 

Where They will not come after.? 
The vast chords hesitate and sway 

Into a sudden laughter. 

Sbefieldt 1917 



n643 



XIX 

1 HAVE known the lure of cities and the bright 

gleam of golden things, 
Spires, towers, bridges, rivers, and the crowd that 

flows as a river, 
Lights in the midnight streets under the rain, 

and the stings 
Of joys that make the spirit reel and shiver. 

But I see bleak moors and marshes and sparse 

grasses, 
And frozen stalks against the snow; 
Dead forests, ragged pines and dark morasses 
Under the shadows of the mountains where no 

men go. 
The crags untenanted and spacious cry aloud as 

clear 
As the drear cry of a lost eagle over uncharted 

lands, 
No thought that man has ever framed in words 

is spoken here. 
And the language of the wind, no man understands. 

Only the sifting wind through the grasses, and 

the hissing sleet. 
And the shadow of the changeless rocks over the 

frozen wold, 
Only the cold. 
And the fierce night striding down with silent feet. 

Chambery, iQiS 

[65 3 



XX 



Wi 



E wove a fillet for thy head, 

And from a flaming lyre 
Struck a song that shall not die 
Until the echoing stars be dead, 
Until the world's last word be said, 
Until on tattered wings' we fly 

Upward and expire. 

And calm with night thou watchest till 

Long after we are gone, 
Not knowing how we worshipped thee; 
Serene, unfathomably still, 
Gazing to the western hill 
Where pales the moon's hushed mystery, 

White in the white dawn. 

Cambridge, 191 j 



1:66] 



BOOK III 
EROS 



I 



N. 



OW the sick earth revives, and in the sun 
The wet soil gives a fragrance to the air; 
The days of many colours are begun, 
And early promises of meadows fair 
With starry petals, and of trees now bare 
Soon to be lyric with the trilling choir, 
And lovely with new leaves, spread everywhere 
A subtle flame that sets the heart on fire 
With thoughts of other springs and dreams of 

new desire. 

The mind will never dwell within the present. 
It weeps for vanished years or hopes for new; 
This morn of wakened warmth, so calm, so 

pleasant, 
So gaily gemmed with diadems of dew. 
When buds swell on the bough, and robins woo 
Their loves with notes bell-like and crystal-clear, 
The spirit stirs from sleep, yet wonders, too. 
Whence comes the hint of sorrow or of fear 
Making it move rebellious within its narrow 

sphere. 

1:693 



This flash of sun, this flight of wings in riot, 
This festival of sound, of sight, of smell. 
Wakes in the spirit a profound disquiet. 
And greeting seems the foreword of farewell. 
Budding like all the world, the soul would swell 
Out of its withering mortality; 
Flower immortal, burst from its heavy shelly 
Fly far with love beyond the world and sea, 
Out of the grasp of change, from time and twi- 
light free. 

Could the unknowing gods, waked in compassion. 

Eternalize the splendour of this hour. 

And from the world's frail garlands strongly 

fashion 
An ageless Paradise, celestial bower. 
Where our long-sundered souls could rise in 

power 
To the complete fulfilment of their dream, 
And never know again that years devour 
Petals and light, bird-note and woodland theme. 
And floods of young desire, bright as a silver 

stream. 

Should we be happy, thou and I together, 
Lying in love eternally in spring. 
Watching the buds unfold that shall not wither, 
Hearing the birds calling and answering, 



When the leaves stir and all the meadows ring? 
SmeHing the rich earth steaming in the sun, 
Feeling between caresses the light wing 
Of the wind whose gracious flight is never done, — 
Should we be happy then? happy, elusive One? 

But no, here in this fragile flesh abides 
The secret of a measureless delight, 
Hidden in dying beauty there resides 
Something undying, something that takes its 

flight 
When the dust turns to dust, and day to night, 
And spring to fall, whose joys in love redeem 
Eternally, life's changes and death's blight. 
Even as these pale, tender petals seem 
A glimpse of infinite beauty, flashed in a passing 

dream. 

CambridgCy igi6 



Cyil 



II 

A HE heavy bee burdened the golden clover 
Droning away the afternoon of summer, 
Deep in the rippling grass I called to you 
Under the sky's blue flame. 
Then when the day was over, 
When petals fell fresh with the falling dew. 
Stepped from the dusk a radiant newcomer, 
Fled by the waters of the sleeping river, 
Swift to the arms of your impatient lover, 
Gladly you came. 

And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this 
for ever. 



Thin rain of the saddest of Septembers 
Bent the tall grasses of the sloping meadows, 
But spring was with me in your slender form, 
And the frail joy of spring. 
Although the chilly embers 
Of summer vanished into the gathering storm 
And the wind clung to the overhanging shadows, 
Fair seemed the spirit's desperate endeavour, 
(And even fair to the spirit that remembers) 
Joy on the wing! 

And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this 
for ever. 

1:723 



Years, and in slow lugubrious succession 

Drop from the trees the leaves' first yellowed 

leaders, 
Autumn is in the air and in the past. 
Desolate, utterly. 

Sunlight and clouds in hesitant procession. 
Laughter and tears, and winter at the last. 
There is a battle-music in the cedars. 
High on the hills of life the grasses shiver. 
Hail, dead reality and living vision. 
Thrice hail in memory. 
And the long wind in the cedars will sing of this 

for ever. 

TourSf jgi8 



1:733 



Ill 



o 



F days and nights under the Hving vine, 
Memory singing from a tree has given 
The plan of my buried heaven, 
That I may dig therein as in a mine. 

Did I call you, little Vigilant One, under the 

waning sun? 
Did you come barefooted through the dew, 
Through the fine dew-drenched grass when the 

colours faded 
Out of the sky? 
Who is that shadow holding over you a veil of 

tempest woven. 
Shaded with streaks of cloud and lightning on 

the edges? 
Lean nearer, I fear him, and the sigh 
Of the rising wind worries the sedges, 
And the cry 

Of a white, long-legged bird from the marsh 
Cuts through the twilight with a threat of night. 
The receding voice is harsh 
And echoes in my spirit. 
Hark, do you hear it wailing against the hollow 

rocks of the hill. 
As it takes its lonely outgoing towards the sea? 
Lean nearer still. 
Your silence is an ecstasy of speech, 

1:743 



You are the only white 
Unconquered by the overwhelming frown. 
Who stands behind you so impassively? 
Bid him begone, or let me reach 
And tear away his veil. But he is gone. 
Who was he? surely no comrade of the dawn, 
No lover from an earthly town. 
Was he then Love? or Death? . . . but he is 
gone. 

Come, I will take your hand, — this little glade 

Of stunted trees, — do you remember that? 

You dropped the Persian vase here on this stone, 

And the white grape was spilled; 

And then you cried, half angry, half afraid; 

Yonder we sat 

And carefully took the pieces one by one, 

And tried to make them lit. 

I brought another vessel filled 

With a deeper wine, and there on that dark bank. 

When the first star stepped from immensity. 

We lay and drank. . . . 

Do you remember it? 

White flame you burned against the star grey 

grass. 
Drink deep and pass 
The insufficient cup to me. 

Paris, igjQ 

Z7Sl 



IV 



Y, 



OU seek to hurt me, foolish child, and why? 
How cunningly you try 

The keen edge of your words against me, yea, 
The death you would not dare inflict on me, 
Yet would you welcome if it tore the day 
In which I pleasure from my sight. 
You would be happy if that sombre night 
Ravished me into darkness where there are 
No flowers and no colours and no hght, 
Nor any joy, nor you, O morning star. 

What have I done to hurt you? You have given 
What I have given, and both of us have taken 
Bravely and beautifully without regret. 
When have I sinned against you.^ or forsaken 
Our secret vow.? Think you that I forget 
One syllable of all your loveliness ? 
What is this crime that shall not be forgiven? 

Spring passes, the pale buds upon the pond 

Shrink under water from my lonely oars. 

The fern is squandering its final frond. 

And gypsy smoke drifts grey from distant shores. 

O soon enough the end of love and song, 
And soon enough the ultimate farewell; 
Blazon our lives with one last miracle, — 
We have not long. ' : - 

GenoUy 1918 



±JY these shall you remember 
The syllables of me; 
The grass in cushioned clumps around 
The root of cedar tree. 

The blue and green design 
Of sky and budding leaves, 
The joyous song that in the sun 
A golden ladder weaves. 

When soil is wet and warm 
And smells of the new rain. 
When frogs accost the evening 
With their recurrent strain, 

Then damn me if you dare. 

I know how you will call, 

But this time I will laugh and run, 

Nor look at you at all. 

Or, if you will, go walking 
With immortality. 
But never shall you once forget 
The syllables of me. 

Parisf igig 



In-X 



VI 



wo black deer uprise 
In ghostly silhouette 
Against the frozen skies, 
Against the snowy meadow; 
The moonlight weaves a net 
Of silver and of shadow. 
The sky is cold above me, 
The icy road below^ 
Leads me from you who love me, 
To unknown destinies. 
Was that your whistle ? — No, 
The wind among the trees. 



Shffidd, 1917 



17^1 



VII 



w, 



HEN in the ultimate embrace 
Our blown dust mingles in the wind, 
And others wander in the place 
Where we made merry; 
When in the dance of spring we spend 
Our ashen powers with the gale, 
What will these tears and joys avail, 
The winged kiss, the laughing face, 
Where we make merry? 
Save that with everlasting grace 
Thy soul shall linger in this place. 
And haunt with music, or else be 
A lyric in the memory. 

Boston, IQ15 



1:79] 



VIII 



T, 



ONIGHT it seems to be the same 
As when we two would sit 
With struggHng breath beside the river. 
How slowly the moon came 
Above the hill; how wet 
With shaking silver she arose 
Above the hill. 

Now in the sultry garden close 
I hear the katydid 
Strumming his foolish mandolin. 
The wind is lying still, 
And suddenly amid 
The trembling boughs the moon expands into a 

scarlet flame. 

What charm can bid the mind forget, 
And sleep in peace forever, 
Beyond the ghosts of ancient sin, 
Lost laughter, barren tears. 

And you, my dear, have slept four thousand 

years, 
Beneath the Pyramid. 

Brussels, jgi8 



CSo] 



IX 



I 



F you should come tonight 
And say, "I could not go, and leave 
You here alone in pain," 
How should I take delight 
In that or dare believe, 
Lest I deceive myself with dreams again? 
If you should come tonight. 

Cambridge, jgi6 



CSi] 



X 



JL OU are very far to-night; 
So far that my beseeching hands 
Clasp on the bright 
MetalHc lock of some forbidden portal, 
Where you alone may enter in; 
And my long gaze 
Blurs in a memory of other lands, 
And other times. 
You stand immortal. 
You have fought clear beyond these nights and 

days 
Whose rusty chimes 
Shake the frail, faded tapestries of sin. 
You stand immortal, 
Intense wth peace, immaculate as stone, 
Raising white arms of praise. 
Far from this night, triumphantly alone. 

Cambridge, igi7 



Z^2l 



XI 

V^ LONELY star moving in still abodes 
Where fear and strife lie indolently furled, 
You cannot hear the rushing autumn hurled 
Against these wanderers bent with futile loads. 
Our broken dreams like withered leaves are swirled 
Where wind-dashed lanterns fail upon the roads, 
And all our tragic gestured episodes 
End in forgotten graveyards of the world. 

But in those twilights where you spread your fires, 
Tempest and clarion are heard no more; 
Autumn no sorrow, spring no hope inspires, 
Nor can the distant closing of a door 
Affright the soul to dark imagining 
Beneath deflowered boughs where no birds sing. 
Pomfrety jgig 



C833 



XII 



A 



CHALICE singing deep with wine, 
Set high among the starry groves, 
Welcomes every man to dine 
With his old familiar loves. 

Sheffield, 1917 



1:84] 



BOOK IV 
THE GARDEN OF EPICURUS 



I 



A. 



.S dreamers through their dreams surmise 
The stealthy passage of the night, 
We half-remember smoky skies 
And city streets and hurrying flight, 
Another world from this clear height 
Whereon our starry altars rise. 



Beneath our towering waste of stone 
The fragile ships creep to and fro, 
By tempest riven and overthrown, 
The toys of these same tides that flow 
Against our pillars far below 
With faint, insistent monotone. 

The snarling winds against our rocks 

Hurl breakers in a fleecy mass, 

Like wolves that chase stampeding flocks 

Over the brink of a crevasse, 

While thunders down the Alpine pass 

The deluge of the equinox. 

Lost in that stormy atmosphere. 

Men chart their seas and trudge their roads; 

Inviolate, we scorn to hear 

Their shouted warning that forebodes 



An end to these fair episodes 
Of life beneath our tranquil sky; 
Having sought only peace, then why 
Should we go down to death with fear ? 

Pomfrrt, ig20 



CSS] 



II 



HE thinkers light their lamps in rows 
From street to street, and then 
The night creeps up behind, and blows 
Them quickly out again. 

While Age limps groping toward his home, 

Hearing the feet of youth 
From dark to dark that sadly roam 

The suburbs of the Truth. 

Parisy 191Q 



CSgD 



Ill 



I 



pass my days in ghostly presences, 
And when the wind at night is mute, 
Far down the valley I can hear a flute 
And a strange voice, not knowing what it says. 

And sometimes in the interim of days, 
I hear a fountain in obscure abodes. 
Singing with none but me to hear, the lays 
That would do pleasure to the ears of gods. 

And faces pass, but haply they are dreams. 
Dreams of a mind set free that gilds 
The solitude with awful light and builds 
Temples and lovers, goblins and triremes. 

Give me a chair and liberate the sun. 

And glancing motes to twinkle down its bars, 

That I may sit above oblivion. 

And weave myself a universe of stars. 

Romey igi8 



Cgo] 



IV 



E 



tACH mote that staggers down the sun 
Repeats an ancient monotone 
That minds me of the time when I 
Put out the candles one by one, 

And left no splendour on the face 
Of Him who found His resting-place 
Upon the Cross; and then I went 
Out on the desert's empty space, 

And heard the wind in monotone 
Blow grains of sand against a stone, 
Until I sang aloud, to break 
The fear of wandering alone. 

There is no fear left in my soul. 

But when, to-day, an aureole 

Of sunlight gathered on your hair. 

And winking motes fled here and there, 

Like notes of music in the air. 

Suddenly I felt the wind 

Wake on the desert as I stole 

Out of that desecrated shrine, 

And then I wondered if you sinned 

As part of me, or if the whole 

Dark sacrilege were mine. 

Cambridge^ iQiy 



H 



E is a priest; 
He feeds the dead; 
He sings the feast; 
He veils his head; 
The words are dread 
In morning mist, 
But the wine is red 
In the Eucharist. 

Red as the east 
With sunHght spread 
Like a bleeding beast 
On a purple bed. 
O Someone fled 
From an April tryst, 
Were your lips fed 
In the Eucharist? 

I, at least, 

When the voice of lead 
Sank down and ceased, 
Knew the things he said. 
That the god who bled, 
And the god we kissed. 
Shall never wed 
In the Eucharist. 



1921 



spring, give the bread 
We sought and missed, 
And wine unshed 
In the Eucharist. 

Parist 1919 



l9il 



VI . 

HROUGH hissing snow, through rain, through 

many hundred Mays, 
Contorted in Promethean jest, the gargoyles sit, 
And watch the crowds pursue the charted ways, 
Whose source is birth, whose end they only know. 
Charms borrowed from the loveliest of hells. 
And from the earth, a rhapsody of wit. 
They hear the sacramental bells 
Chime through the towers, and they smile. 
Smile on the insects in the square below. 
Smile on the stars that kiss the infinite. 
And, when the clouds hang low, they gaily spout 
Grey water on the heads of the devout 
That gather, whispering, in the sabbath street. 
O gargoyles! was the vinegar and bile 
So bitter? Was the eucharist so sweet .^ 

Parisy igig 



n943 



VII 



V.JODS dine on prayer and sacred song, 

And go to sleep between; 

The gods have slumbered long; 

The gods are getting lean. 

Sheffield^ 1917 



C95] 



VIII 



A SMILE will turn away green eyes 



Pttris, I9'9 



1:96a 



IX 

A WO Kings there were, one Good, one Bad; 
The first was mournfulness itself. 
The second, happy as a lad, — 
And both are dust upon a shelf. 

Shejffuldy 1917 



t97 3 



X 



I 



SEE that Hermes unawares, 
Has left his footprints on the path; 
See here, he fell, and in his wrath 
He pulled out several golden hairs 
Against the brambles. Guard them well, 
The hairs of gods are valuable. 

Paris f JQ19 



1:981 



xi 



OEMIRAMIS, the whore of Babylon, 
Bade me go walking with her. I obeyed. 
Philosophy, I thought, is not afraid 
Of any woman underneath the sun. 
Far up the hills she led me, where one ledge 
Thrust out a slender finger to the sky, 
Dizzy and swaying as an eagle's cry; 
Semiramis stepped to the farthest edge. 

And there she danced, whirling upon her toes, 
The triumph of a flame was in her face. 
Faster and faster as the mad wind blows. 
She whirled, and slipped, and dashed down into 

space. . . . 
Next day I saw her smiling in the sun, 
Semiramis, the Queen of Babylon. 

Parisy 1919 



1:993 



XII 



Bi 



•RING hemlock, black as Cretan cheese, 
And mix a sacramental brew; 
A worthy drink for Socrates, 
Why not for you? 

Sheffieldy 1917 



1:100:1 



XIII 



w 



ALKING through the town last night, 
I learned the lore of second sight, 
And saw through all those solid walls, 
Imbecile and troglodyte. 

The vicious apes of either sex 
Grinned and mouthed and stretched their necks, 
Their Httle lusts skipped back and forth, 
Not very pretty or complex. 

Each has five senses; every sense 
Is like a false gate in a fence, 
They think the gates are bona fide. 
Such is their only innocence. 

And think themselves extremely wise 
When any sense records its lies. 
They mumble what they feel or hear, 
Unmindful still of Paradise. 

When I walked through the town last night 
In vain they drew their curtains tight. 
Through walls of brick I plainly saw 
The imbecile, the troglodyte. 

Parts, igig 



CioO 



XIV 



T, 



HE change of many tides has swung the flow 
Of those green weeds that cHng hke filthy fur 
Upon the timbers of this voyager 
That sank in the clear water long ago. 
Whence did she sail? the sands of ages blur 
The answer to the secret, and as though 
They mocked and knew, sleek fishes, to and fro, 
Trail their grey carrion shadows over her. 
Coffer of all life gives and hides away. 
It matters not if London or if Tyre 
Sped you to sea on some remoter day; 
Beneath your decks immutable desire 
And hope and hate and envy still conspire, 
While all the gaping faces nod and sway. 

Brussels^ IQ19 



I 102] 



XV 

r lERO di Cosimo, 

Your unicorns and afterglow, 

Your black leaves cut against the sky, 

Black crosses where the young gods die. 

Black horizons where the sea 

And clouds contend perpetually, 

And hanging low, 

The menace of the night : — 

They called you madman. Were they right, 
Piero di Cosimo? 

Pomfrett IQIQ 



n 103 3 



XVI 



I 



WOULD know what can not be known; 
I would reach beyond my sphere, 
And question the stars in their courses, 
And the dead of many a year. 
I would tame the infinite forces 
That bend me down Hke the grain, 
Peace would I give to the fields where the young 

men died. 
Peace to the sea where the ships of battle ride. 
And hght again to the eyes of the beautiful slain. 

This would I do, but today against the sky. 
They who were building a cross grinned as I 
passed them by. 

Pomfrett igiQ 



1:1043 



XVII 



T, 



HE yellow bird is singing by the pond, 
And all about him stars have burst in bloom, 
A colonnade stands pallidly beyond. 
And beneath that a solitary tomb. 
Who lies within that tomb I do not know, 
The yellow bird intones his threnody 
In notes as colourless as driven snow. 
Clashing with the green hush and out of key. 

O cease, your endless song is out of tune. 
Where all these old forgotten things are 

sleeping, — 
Give back to silencers eternal keeping 
The windless pond, the hanging colonnade, 
Lest in the wane of the long afternoon. 
The Dead awake, unhappy and afraid. 

Bordeaux, igiy 



Cios] 



BOOK V 

SONNETS 



Lo 



►VE dwelled with me with music on her lips; 
Beauty has quickened me to passion; prayer 
Has cried from me before I was aware 
When grief was scourging me with scarlet whips. 
The gods gave me to follies false and fair; 
Made me the object of immortal quips, 
But I am recompensed with comradeships 
That gods themselves would be content to share. 

The time of play has been, of wisdom, is; 
Yet who can say which is the truly wise? 
Enough that I have stayed Love with a kiss, 
That Beauty has found welcome in my eyes; 
Though the long poplar path leads dark before, 
Up to the white inevitable door. 



[;io9ll 



II 



I 



NVOKING not the worship of the crowd 
As Hadrian divulged Antinous 
Would I denote Thy sanctity, not thus 
Should Love's deep htany be cried aloud. 
There is a mountain set apart for us 
Where I have hid Thy soul as in a cloud, 
And there I dedicate as I have vowed 
My secret voice, — all else were impious. 

Remote and undiscovered, rest secure 
Where I have set Thee up, that I may keep 
My faith of God-in-Thee unblent and pure; 
That I may be at one with Thee in sleep; 
That waking as a mortal, I may leap 
Into immortal dreams where love is sure. 



Clio] 



Ill 



.ND yet think not that I desire to seal 
Your earthly beauty from the eyes of praise, 
The Soul I worship hath its holy-days, 
But being God is manifestly real. 
The flesh resplendent in a lover's gaze 
Hath too its triumph; the divine ideal 
Is dual and can wonderfully reveal 
Itself in dust enriched by subtle ways. 

You are no shadow, for in you combine 

Earth-music and a spirit's sanctity, 

And both are exquisite, and both are mine. . 

For holier men a Beatrice, for me 

The joyous sense of your reality. 

Not half so saintly, — but far more divine. 



Cm] 



IV 



w, 



ITH the young god who out of death creates 
The flame of Hfe made manifest in spring, 
Let us go forth at day's awakening, 
The first to open wide the garden gates. 
And resting where the blowing seasons sing, 
Await the voice of god who consecrates 
The paUid hands of the autumnal fates 
That beckon from the dusk, dream-harvesting. 

When comes the grey god, eager to destroy 
Our garnered hoard of wisdom and of joy. 
Fear not that phantom, desolate and stark. 
For the young god, the all-creating boy. 
Will come and find us sleeping in the dark, 
And from two deaths, bring forth life's single 
spark. 



I ml 



o 



IT was gay! the wilderness was floral, 
The sea a bath of wine to the laughing swimmer; 
Dawn was a flaming fan; dusk was a glimmer 
Like undersea where sly dreams haunt the coral. 
The garden sang of fame when the golden shim- 
mer 
Of sun glowed on the proud leaves of the laurel, — 
But time and love fought out their ancient 

quarrel; 
The songs are fainter now; the lights are dimmer. 

For it is over, over, and the spring 

Is not quite spring to you who sit alone; 

A paradise entire has taken wing; 

Love and her merry company are gone 

The way of all delight and lyric measures, 

And the lone miser mourns his vanished treasures. 



1:1133 



VI 



T, 



HE snow is thawing on the hanging eaves, 
The buds unroll upon the basking Hmb, 
And hidden birds are practising a hymn 
To sing when petals fall among the leaves. 
And yet in life there is an interim 
So dull that stagnant loneliness bereaves 
Beauty of tenderness, and hope deceives 
Until the eyes grow sceptical and dim. 

I know I have no right to solitude 

When every friendly grove is loud with calls 

From bird to mating bird, and all the wood 

Is throbbing with the voice of waterfalls. 

But merry song and liquid interlude 

Ring in my heart like mirth in empty halls. 



1:114] 



VII 



1^0 ends the day with beauty in the west, 
Bending in holy peace above the land; 
It is not needful that we understand; 
Oblivion is ours, and that is best. 
Oblivion of battles that command 
Our wan reluctance, and a starless rest 
Borne on in tideless twilight, where all quest 
Ends in the pressure of a quiet hand. 

There is no morrow to this final dream 
That paints the past so wonderfully fair; 
No rising sun shall desecrate that gleam 
Of fragile colour hanging on the air. 
Enshrined in sunset are all things that seem 
Happy and beautiful; and Thou art there. 



C»ua 



VIII 

.CROSS the evening calm I faintly hear 
The melody you loved; a violin 
Sings through the listening air, far-ofF and thin, 
The infinite music of our happy year. 
The soul's dim gates are broken to let in 
That gush of memories, and you are near. 
Poised on the shadowy threshold whence appear 
The prospects of the dreams we strove to win. 

Rise wistfully, and fall away, and pass, 
Frail music of impossible delight. 
Steal into silence over the dark grass. 
Dreams of the inner caverns of the night. 
Strange that in those few hesitating bars 
Are Ufe and death, the orbits of the stars. 



i:ii63 



IX 

V>ALMER than mirrored waters after rain, 
Calmer than all the swaying tides of sleep, 
Profounder than the stony eyes that keep 
Afternoon vigil on the ruined plain; 
So drift they by, the cloudy forms that creep 
In stealthy whiteness through the windless grain; 
The twilight ebbs, and washed in the long rain, 
I am their shepherd, pasturing my sheep. 

They can not change; they can but wander here; 
That is their destiny and also mine; 
The fuel that I was, the flames they were, 
Are vanished down the lost horizon line. 
Likewise the stars have died; the silence hears 
Only the footfall of the pastured years. 



1:1173 



X 



I 



STOOD like some worn image carved of stone 
Amid the thoughtful sands of eventide; 
When rolling back the grey, there opened wide 
The unsuspected gates of the Unknown. 
Long hours I stood, amazed and deified. 
Beside that singing shore; that shining zone, 
Myself like God, triumphantly alone, 
*'And is this then the shore of death?'' I cried. 

A wind blew down from the tremendous sky, 
Fraught with a whisper fainter than a breath. 
Fanning my spirit with exalted wonder; 
But the great doors swung to with rumbling 

thunder; 
One more the winged faith had passed me by, 
Like unto melody, like unto death. 



CiiS] 



XI 



Ti 



H ROUGH the deep night the leaves speak, 

tree to tree. 
Where are the stars? the frantic clouds ride 

high, 
The swelling gusts of wind blow down the sky. 
Shaking the thoughts from the leaves, garrulously. 
Through the deep night, articulate to me, 
They question your untimely passing-by; 
Your spring is still in flower, must you fly 
Windswept so soon down lanes of memory? 

Through the deep night the trees recount the 

past. 
The lovers that have long ago gone hence. 
And whom you joined ere love had reached her 

prime. 
Chill with an early autumn's immanence. 
Through the dark night plunges the sudden 

blast, 
Sweeping the young leaves down before their 

time. 



1:1193 



XII 



I 



WALKED the hollow pavements of the town, 
Lost in the vast entirety of night, 
The moon was cankered with a greyish bhght, 
And half her face was gathered in a frown. 
A hooded watchman passed me, and his gown 
Was dyed so black it made the darkness white, 
He turned upon my face his curious light. 
And whispered as he wandered up and down. 

Then there were curling lanes and then a hill, 
And sentry stars that guard the Absolute, 
And spectral feet that followed me, until 
The vapours rose, and somewhere in the mute 
And hesitating dawn, a single flute 
Piped once again the grey, and then was still. 



C i2o3 



XIII 



I 



N tireless march I move from sphere to sphere. 
I turn not back nor pause; my feet are drawn 
By shining power. Master soul or pawn, 
I know not which I am; I only hear 
The faint insistent world voice murmuring on 
Its pivot in another atmosphere; 
AH else is silence, the pervading year 
Blows wanly through my senses and is gone. 

O You who met me on the sunny lawn 

Of yesteryear, to be my true companion, 

And bade me lead you with me from the dawn 

Into the shades of my predestined cafion. 

How is it that I find myself alone 

Here in this desolate and starry zone? 



C1213 



XIV 



A 



WHILE you shared my path and soHtude, 
A while you ate the bread of loneliness, 
And satisfied yourself with a caress 
Or with a careless overflow of mood. 
And then you left me suddenly, to press 
Into the world again, and seek your food 
Among the mortals whom you understood. 
Instead of learning in the wilderness. 

Now you return to where you fled from me. 
And find me gone. You call me from afar, 
And call in vain; I can not turn to see 
You loveliness, beloved as you are. 
Inexorably I move from sphere to sphere. 
Nor wait for any soul, however dear. 



C 122] 



XV 



T, 



HERE is a void that reason can not face, 
Nor wisdom comprehend, nor sweating will 
Diminish, nor the rain of April fill. 
And I am weary of this wan grimace. 
Behold I touch the garments of all ill 
And do not wash my hands; a dusty place 
Unprobed by light becomes a loud mill race 
That swirls together straw and daffodil. 

It is untrue that vigil can not trace 

The orbits which upon our births distil 

The filtered dew of fate; I saw the hill 

That I must climb, and gauged the upward pace; 

And now upon the night's worn window sill, 

I wait and smile. Hail, Judas, full of grace. 



C123II 



XVI 



T, 



HE mirrors of all ages are the eyes 
Of some remembering god, wherein are sealed 
The beauties of the world, the April field, 
Young faces, blowing hair, and autumn skies. 
The mirrors of the world shall break, and yield 
To life again what never really dies; 
The forms and colours of earth's pageantries, 
Unwithered and undimmed, shall be revealed. 

And in that moment silence shall unfold 
Forgotten songs that she has held interred, 
The ocean rising on the shores of gold, 
Flecked with white laughter and love's lyric 

word; 
All happy music that the world has heard; 
All beauty that eternal eyes behold. 



C 1243 



XVII 



w, 



E sat in silence till the twilight fell, 
And then beyond the vague and purple arc 
Where sky and ocean merge, a summons. "Hark! 
Clear notes like water falling in a well, 
Can you not hear?" **No, but a sudden dark 
Seems to enfold me, lonely and terrible." 
Out of the sunset, a black caravel 
Drew near, and then I knew I should embark. 

I saw it tack against the fading skies, 

I heard its keel slide crunching up the sand, 

Then turned, and read, deep in the other's eyes, 

The pain of one who can not understand. 

Dusk deepened over the insurging seas. 

And loose sails crackled in the rising breeze. 



li2Sl 



XVIII 



Hi 



E clung to me, his young face dark with woe, 
And as the mournful music of the tide 
Monotonously sang, he stood and cried, 
A silhouette against the afterglow. 
I said, "The boat has spread her pinions wide; 
The stars and wind come forth together. Go 
Back to our ivy-haunted portico, 
And place my seat as always at your side." 

And so I stepped aboard and left him there. 
Farewell; the rhythmic somnolence of oars; 
Star-misty vastness; swiftly moving air; 
Then distant lights on undiscovered shores. 
This I remember, standing by the sea. 
But where was that dark land, and who were we ? 



1:126:1 



f? 



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